Minister of Finance to leave office at end of this year

News

Finance Minister Harris Georgiades has announced his decision to leave the Ministry at the end of the year.

In statements on Friday to the press, Georgiades said that he has discussed with President of the Republic Nicos Anastasiades that he will continue his work in the Ministry until the end of the year, after seven years of service in the Ministry.

He also clarified that his decision is not expedited due to the findings of the investigation regarding the collapse of the Cooperative Bank and described those findings as wrong and unfair.

Opposition parties have demanded that Georgiades resigns after the probe said that he was mainly to blame for the collapse of the bank.

The CCB, Cyprus second largest lender which was bailout by the state in 2013 and in 2015 with €1.7 billion, was split between a bad bank and a good bank, with the latter sold to Hellenic Bank, which paid the state with €74 million and received a balance sheet of €10.3 billion.

«The Finance Minister bears the heaviest responsibilities for the failure of the Cooperative Credit Sector (CCS). We could say that (his responsibilities) are proportionally similar to those of a big shareholder in private company, which failed due to his mismanagement,” the Committee said on the 6th of March in an 844 page-long report.